The Good Shepard
by Scraggles
Summary: Talking faith with Ashley is great and all, but... it's not enough. A response to the gigantic cultural and theological holes marring the otherwise fantastic space opera that is Mass Effect. Slow-burn Femshep/Ashley. Rating and genre subject to change. Taking suggestions and requests!
1. Eden Prime, 2183

**A/N:** The purpose of this fic is partly to express my adoration for all things ME and partly to address something I noticed after my 15th playthrough, which ME hardly touches on: religion. In ME, we learn Ashley is a theist (we don't know what kind, maybe Roman Catholic), turians have some kind of earth religion, asari sometimes say "by the goddess" or are siari spiritualists, but actual theological beliefs and practices aren't really spelled out beyond that.

Well, society might be pushing religion out of the social sphere lately, but I have a hard time believing it'd be universally unimportant to all sentient life, even futuristic post-spaceflight life. As a staunch science/history nut whose study has only enhanced my faith, I just don't see it.

So, I'm writing this fic to fill the gaps, and I'd love to hear any theological questions, beliefs and practices, or links to debates/studies/codexes you think would help make for a richer experience. I don't have a set schedule for publishing chapters, nor can I guarantee each vignette will be released in order, but there's lots of fun in store, and I'd love to know what you think!

* * *

 **EDEN PRIME, 2183**

* * *

Her shields are almost down. The geth hot on her tail chip away at the only thing keeping her this side of eternity like it's small talk, as if there could be no other outcome for demonstrably inferior bipedal sentient beings than obliteration – and after the humans were all exterminated they'd probably ping about it over the binary equivalent of tea.

Meanwhile Ashley's heart pounds in her ears like a gatling gun, her breath fails her, her skin is a blanket of fire and nails – and she knows it's not the best time, but if this is the answer to all those prayers to get off this stupid planet and see the stars again, she really hopes God changes His mind – because she's running out of options, and as much as she'd like a round of kumbaya in heaven, she really doesn't feel like dying today.

But there's no time to dwell. She clears the dig site as fast as her screaming legs can carry her, harried by the soft ground and the steep grade. There's nothing and no one to be seen – no people, no cover, no distractions, just destruction, and there seems to be no end to it.

The geth are closing in. She can hear the thrusters humming over the intermittent bursts of semi-auto. The last one almost knocks her over, and her hardsuit protests that she might just be pushing the limits of what a soldier can do – but it's an uphill battle, literally, and she has legs, and they don't – and if there are survivors anywhere, she's glad they're wasting time on her and not innocent civilians, though her shields definitely disagree, because it almost feels like she's the only one left alive, and she would love to believe someone somewhere was getting out of this.

Even in this full-on geth invasion, worst-case scenario, God, she really wants to believe it.

It's like everything is slow motion. Her lungs are blazing, like she's breathing liquid sandpaper, hands pulsing hot, like she's been running for a lifetime. Atop the hill ahead is a patch of trees, but she'll never make it without ten rounds in the back and a one-way ticket to the Lord's supper. She's so out of breath, she's starting to see spots.

Depleted shields flicker with another shot. Her legs buckle. It's do or die, and Williams blood says she better hedge her bets quick. She grits her teeth, throws herself to the dirt, turns, and fires what might be her last rounds at the first thing she lays eyes on – two flying flashlights.

The last thing she thinks is how cruel a joke it'd be to come all this way, miss, and have the Alliance brass posthumously award the rest of the 2/12 medals because they thought _another_ Williams ran from a fight.

But she instantly regrets it.

The flashlights fall to pieces and crash land at her feet. Her LT, her squad, Nirali and Sergeant Donkey, her friends, they hadn't been so lucky – cut down like they were made of grass. And maybe luck isn't the right word, but divine providence doesn't sound comforting right now.

She doesn't get the chance to make up her mind. No sooner than the dust clears, she spots two more lamp heads. _Shit. How did I miss – are those... tripods?_ She's seen them all over camp, same color as that _freaky_ mothership, and that half-dead colonist in their clutches – _what the hell?_

She hears his ribs crunch before they finish skewering him, like those cybernetic _husks_ on pikes she saw on the way down. _That's why they're killing colonists, turning_ _us into those_ _ **things**_ **.** She watches his chest burst open and spray them with a geyser of blood, and that's when they turn towards her.

 _Damn it, Ash, think quick!_ She scrambles to her feet again. This time there's cover. She hurls herself behind the half-destroyed bits of ruin to catch her breath, auto-extending AR in hand. It was Donk's. Not anymore. She made a promise.

Maybe if she's lucky, she can pop one without the other ripping through the rest of her shields. Or maybe they'll cut her down like razorblades in a hurricane. She sucks in a breath and shuts her eyes tight, focusing on the sound of their footsteps in the grass, waiting for the time to strike – but her mind is racing. Her life is flashing behind her eyes.

 _God. Everything is crashing around me. I don't know if you have a plan... or if you're listening... Just, promise me you'll take care of my sisters. And if it's my time – remember Samson – and let me take these geth bastards with me. And please be real. I know this isn't exactly a good time, but I wish I had more-_

* * *

 **Trivia 1:** Separate conversations before and after Mass Effect's Prologue mission place Eden Prime in the Attican Traverse, bordering the Terminus Systems. However, Eden Prime is well within Systems Alliance space, where it resides in the Exodus Cluster, Utopia system, likely as an oversight.

Personally, I won't be correcting this. Councilors and Alliance officials knowing more about their galaxy than game designers makes more sense than the Alliance not noticing a giant purple space lobster carting around a turian and a whole bunch of geth destroying a whole colony deep in Systems Alliance turf - especially considering Sovereign is a highly conspicuous ship, the geth haven't been outside the Veil for centuries, First Contact wasn't long ago, and human ships have windows.

 **Trivia 2:** Sergeant Donkey was an Alliance soldier assigned to the 2/12 dog squad with Ashley Williams on Eden Prime. He appears in ME: Foundation 3, _The Fall of Eden Prime,_ and displays romantic attraction to Williams, although his squaddies joke that there's a better chance of her hooking up with Pennyloafer, the other girl on the squad. Despite this, he still expresses the squad's confidence in Ashley's skills, empathizes with her about their overbearing LT, and defers to her leadership when it becomes clear their patrol has stumbled onto more than just any old picnic. Interestingly, Sergeant is not a listed rank in either the Mass Effect wiki or codexes.

 **To be continued. Review and follow if you dig!**


	2. Over The Hill

**OVER THE HILL**

* * *

She wishes she had more times like these, when Dad's home for the holidays to laugh and play and read to her like he is now, his calloused hands holding that big book with the woodblock print and the family pictures with the words written on the back, all shoved into the front of the book. Sometimes he asks her to read with him too, and he praises her, not because she reads very well but because she always humors him.

"Moreover the word of Yahweh came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what do you see?"

Ashley sees Mom snooping in the doorway, trying to listen in on them, but it's more fun to pretend she doesn't notice.

"The branch of an almond tree, Daddy!" she shouts. Barely past his knee, she's already so much like her father.

His soft smile brims with pride. "And what's the word for almond tree?"

" **Shaqed!** " She grins, and true enough, she's going to be Daddy's little girl as long as she lives.

"Very good!" To his credit, he smiles as widely as she does back at him. "Then Yahweh said to Jeremiah, You have seen well, for I will **shaqad** over my word to perform it." And he smiles even wider as she marvels at the word play. "Now tell me, little miss Ashley Madeline, what do _you_ see..."

* * *

Ashley hardly believes her eyes – sizzling slugs in the dirt, and two living, breathing marines, special forces. It can't be. Comms from Eden Prime take days to get out, sometimes longer. Maybe she's hallucinating. Maybe they're geth, and she just wishes they were Alliance. Maybe she's about to have that one last literal come-to-Jesus meeting, and they're some kind of angels.

Well, she wants to go, but hell if she'll let them take her just yet. Heartbeat in her ears, fast as lightning, loud as thunder, she steels herself for one last fight, and that's when she hears the unthinkable.

 _ **Baumwh! Baumh!**_ Shotgun blasts.

 _ **Bwp thp thip thop!**_ And an Alliance grade pistol...

"Grenade out!"

 _V_ _oices. What the-_

Maybe God _did_ change his mind – or maybe it was providence. Doesn't matter. The grenade showers her in dirt, and she pops out from cover to finish the geth off.

 _This is my chance!_

It's quick and clean, two shots, one to each lamp. She eyes them to make sure the lights fizzle out and the circuits smoke. If she remembers correctly from her days at the academy, the geth do some sort of self-destruct when they're critically damaged, to keep anyone from data mining corpses. Smart, but she cares less about that and more about knowing they're dead.

Her rescuers trot down to meet her, a man and a woman, full tack N7 gear and rifles mag-locked over each shoulder. She gets a good look, and just her luck, who's come to her aid but a damn celebrity, the Hero of the Blitz herself; all the vids, her face is everywhere, practically a household name for what she did.

 _Shit. Out of the frying pan and into the fire._

She tries not to let on just how out of her depth she is, or how uncomfortable she feels in the presence of a veritable legion of one. That is to say not much less than when she was _surrounded by geth._ Though from this end of the dirt, staring a living legend in the face feels the decidedly better alternative – if barely. She can only imagine the ass-chewing she's going to get if Shepard doesn't like so much as her shoe-shine.

Comes with being a marine. _And a Williams,_ the cynic in her reminds none too gently as she catches her breath. She'll never live it down.

"Thanks for your help, Commander. I didn't think I was gonna make it."

It's an understatement, but maybe it won't end up on her record. That is, if they make it out of this alive. She catches a whiff of hot ozone in the air – _biotics. Must be real bad to send the cavalry to some backwater on the edges of the Terminus Systems._

Shepard's reply is between cool and cold. "Much obliged. Been nothing but trouble since we touched down planetside." The look on her squadmate's face reads a solid _no joke._ Ashley wonders how many they've lost, but she knows better than to ask. Protocol comes first.

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 2/12," she starts, and she's waiting for the Shanxi sting. "Are you the one in charge here ma'am?"

She nods curtly. "Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy." Of course, everyone knows who she is, but it comes natural. "Are you wounded, Williams?"

Ashley shakes her head. "A few scrapes and burns. Nothing serious. The others weren't so lucky." And a half-hour ago, they weren't so dead, either. "Oh man..."

It all starts to blend together, adrenaline and blood.

Bates is the only one unaccounted for; she wonders where he is, if he's still alive. He's always been a chicken-shit with a rifle, but if Ashley knows one thing, it's that he was absolutely right about everything these past few days. The others called it superstition, but he just knew. She hopes that sixth-sense gets him through the night, if he's still alive. After what they saw of Bravo squad, he's going to need it.

"We were patrolling the perimeter when the attack hit. We tried to get off a distress call," or rather, Jenner did, "but they cut off our communications. I've been fighting for my life ever since."

She still doesn't know if stopping to make that call was worth it. Whatever that thing was, it fried their comms, every frequency, nothing but static. If anyone saw that clip, it was a miracle.

Shepard grimaces. "Where's the rest of your unit?"

In a word, _gone._

The last thing she remembers before hell broke loose – Dog squad was hoofing it the last couple klicks back to the beacon after stumbling on Bravo squad face down in a ditch. Never fired a shot, but nobody had much time to think about it. Wasn't long before comm chatter went crazy. It was Able and Charlie back at the dig site – next on the menu if they didn't get there quick.

That was an hour ago. No telling what's happened to them by now. She almost wishes her squad all broke ranks and ran like Bates; he just disappeared. Probably for the best. A bunch of greenhorns like Bhatia, Jenner, and the others didn't stand a chance in a real firefight, and deep down they knew it. Better court-martial than casualty.

 _Casualties..._

Pennyloafer's dead eyes just won't get out of her head. Hazel. She remembers them in the low light like it was just five minutes ago they were running with the boys' jokes. And maybe she was mostly kidding when Penny would always ask her, "Penny for your thoughts?" and she'd tell her what was more like it – but now she'll be in more than her thoughts. She's dead; she'll be in the ground, and her nightmares.

And nightmares she reckons she'll have aplenty now.

Nirali, she used to listen to her husband's vidmails every night, and maybe they weren't especially close, but she _was_ one of the few people who saw Ashley as more than just her last name. Now, _if_ she lives through this, there's a pretty good chance of her death, like all the others, weighing on her head.

For Christ's sake, she was set for _terminal leave!_

And Donk, well, maybe he could've survived if he wasn't zeroed in on her six all day long – or if she'd been a quicker shot – or if it hadn't all happened so fast – but who is she kidding, really? Those geth were heat-seeking bullet hoses. There's no way anyone came out of that alive.

"I don't think any of the others..." Ashley stops herself. "I think I'm the only one left."

Shepard's brow furrows. "This isn't your fault, Williams." There are no right words, but sympathetic eyes belie a wistful elegia when she says, "You couldn't have done anything to save them."

Somehow it manages to sound something like what she needs to hear. There's that ring of personal experience in her voice and just enough force to shore her up, if only for a moment.

" _For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Matthew 7:29."_

"I... Yes ma'am. We held position as long as we could, until the geth overwhelmed us."

Shepard and her subordinate exchange glances, and she's reminded the one still has her at a disadvantage. She doesn't even know his name. Part of her doesn't want to, in case he dies, but that's a fleeting thought. His dark brows knit in suspicion. "The geth haven't been outside the veil in centuries. Why are they here now?"

Ashley has an idea, that being the only thing worthy of note on this whole damn rock. "They must be here for the beacon," she supplies. She's had a bad feeling about this whole operation from the jump. Special thanks to her lieutenant, it'd been one sour note after the other. "The dig site is close, just over the rise. Might still be there." _Crawling with geth and who knows what else._

"Then that's where we're headed," Shepard says, and her associate nods accordingly. "We could use your help, Williams."

"Aye-aye, ma'am. It's time for payback." _And don't you go dying on me. Please, God, no more dead marines._

"You can say that again." Shepard scoffs. "Move out!"

And they're off, rifles at the ready. What starts off awkward soon works into an easy rhythm between the three. Geth show up, geth get killed, Shepard motions for Ashley to take point again, and before anything can touch her, it either gets shot to pieces or biotically torn to shreds. With Ashley's home field advantage and spec ops firepower, it finally feels like they're getting somewhere.

Sure, she's tired. Sure, her hardsuit looks like they drug her behind the tram a couple klicks, and she hasn't slept since the last time the sun was up, but with the Hero of the Blitz on her side, for the first time in her life, she just might say the odds are at least _somewhat_ in her favor.

* * *

 **To be continued...**

 **A/N: No trivia this time. Big thanks to all the recommendations everyone has passed along! Really helping flesh out the skeleton I'm working on. Feel free to drop some more in the review box or shoot me a PM. :)**

 **Hope you all had safe/fun/heartwarming holidays! 3**


	3. Overhead and Above the Paygrade

**OVERHEAD AND ABOVE THE PAYGRADE**

* * *

Maybe the odds _are_ in Ashley's favor. Their advance is steady and relentless, the Commander hits like a freight train, and they pick off their enemies with surgical precision. The geth, for all their numbers, are like so many flies. They may sting like hornets, but their overloaded weapons explode in three-digit polymer hands; metal chassis twist around rock with an ungodly shear – and snap like rubber bands.

Like the geth, Ashley feels so much out of her depth, but they're just over-clocked, and she has adrenaline. She watches as Shepard pins another in her sights with a swift mnemonic, then smashes its twin with a hard biotic throw. The others just keep coming, like they're too stupid to run.

 _They're nothing if not persistent,_ she thinks to herself as she lands a clean kill of her own, courtesy of practically everything in sight sent tumbling in zero-gee. Her own aim is impressive, but _God,_ it's like biotiball to basketball. She might be good at what she does, but hell if she doesn't wish she could do _that._

Shepard's second is a legion in his own right, though it's not hard to tell he's holding back, working the crowd and letting them do the real damage. It's an easy rhythm, one that goes well with her favorite game: cat and mouse. So long as she can keep the geth under pressure, she gets to be the cat, popping from cover to cover, waiting to pounce. The biotics, they're the mouse trap.

Before she knows it, the last drops like a stone, leaving nothing but the chattering shooting gallery in the distance; she can hear the AA guns in working order, and it feels like relief because at the very least, it means someone's alive out there.

" _It ain't over until the fat lady sings – or chokes on a sandwich,"_ Penny always said.

Although, in the case of Eden Prime's questionable stewardship of a pitiful defense budget, one could hope for the best, but they certainly were _not_ prepared for the worst. The state of affairs was even less encouraging than when Pennyloafer finally let everyone in on the secret that the fat lady in question was Mama Cass Elliot, and she had actually died of a heart attack in the mid-1970's; the sandwich, a myth that probably persisted because – well, Cass was a big girl, and hell, if the media hasn't always loved a good sensation, the whole vid industry would have come crashing down before the 2000's rolled around.

And Cass, Penny must have listened to that girl day and night. Ashley can still hear her singing in the morning, in the showers, humming over chow – even when the Lieutenant would stick them all scrubbing the head floors till balls o'clock in the morning, probably for no other reason than to make their lives hell. Still, _"gettin' better every day!"_ she'd croon, and Ash would elbow her in the ribs to quit wooing her on the job, dammit.

It's not as if she didn't like her well enough, well, aside from the impending heart attack her parents would have about her getting friendly with a junior officer, a _girl,_ especially now that the new Pope had started making a big deal about traditional family values; she'd be damned if she gave their bastard LT a reason to punish Penny for her sake, and, frankly, she just wasn't sure girls were her thing. She still isn't.

 _But she'll always remember those eyes._

Ashley lets out a breath she doesn't remember ever holding. One of the worst things about going class-B enhanced is the _constant_ over-thinking; being ready at a moment's notice has its disadvantages. Some days, it's like living in slow motion, watching the world in Technicolor.

"Bag 'em and tag 'em," she grits out. And back to reality, her subconscious reminds. Distraction could mean the difference between life and death.

Bushy-brows smirks and crouches down in the rubble, scanning an intact pulse rifle. "I take it you never heard of _reduce, reuse, recycle,_ Williams," he jokes, mag-locking it to his back, probably for reverse engineering. Another, he atomizes into omni-gel, and she wonders if he's being intentionally unironic. Still, the words give her pause.

"You could say that," she muses. And of course, he _could;_ this colony _has_ been one environmental catastrophe after the next.

In the past six months, convincing the people not to pop the gas bags is the closest the local government came to being proper keepers of this rock and its seemingly endless rolling fields, and it's worth noting, only after reports of kids seizing from the fumes and choking to death on their own vomit ceased being convenient to ignore.

Politicians, of course, didn't hesitate to ram through knee-jerk reactionary legislation while the public was in a frenzy, and no sooner was possession of gas bag verdanotoxin criminalized – not to be confused with antibiotic viridotoxin – gas bags, previously an untapped resource, became cash cows overnight. _And now they're in e_ _verything from anaesthetics to chemical weapons, all_ _sustainably sourced verdano-agents... Right._

It's a far cry from the antics of the EPA and FDA back on Earth, but for a bunch of suits bought and paid for by campaign contributions, she might not be able to say so in uniform, but she supposes it's all in a day's work. Lucky for her, Shepard looks like she's about to distract her from thinking about it too hard.

"LT, radar's jammed," she calls over her shoulder. "Combat scan. See if any more of the bastards is hanging around."

The lieutenant nods affirmatively. "Yes ma'am."

 _A biotic_ _ **and**_ _a techie. Well, that explains the pea shooter._

With a flick of the wrist, he pulls up his omnitool like second nature, maybe the fanciest she's ever seen in person, and then it dawns on her he must have a high-end military scanner too; she hasn't seen one of those either, not since turian point-defense sims on Titan, but he navigates through it like _she_ does rifle assembly, and, for the record, Ashley has spent so much time assembling and disassembling her rifle in the past nine years, she dreams about it sometimes.

The lieutenant, it's easy to see him for who he is: to the point, protocol in his blood – a certain tension lurking under his veneer, and Shepard's, for that matter. There's a fire in her eyes, his too, the kind that comes from things hitting close to home, but she knows better than to say anything.

While he gets to work de-scrambling what must be thousands of distress beacons worth of interference across the colony, Shepard takes her aside for a moment, and she finally gets a good look at her up close – or rather, the piercing eyes of a legend few were sure was human after what she'd accomplished on Elysium, even if they all knew she'd pulled it out of her ass like she'd said in the countless interviews; after all, it was easier to accept that than stamp her with God's providential seal of approval just like Moses, David, or, say, Israel in the Six Day War, even if that's exactly what she was for the colonists out in the Skyllian Verge.

It's more than a little unnerving, not just the rock-star status, but sooner or later, _someone's_ going to ask if Ashley Madeline Williams any relation to _General_ Williams, because God knows, if Ashley isn't the spitting image of her grandfather, everyone else must have been switched at birth – and they definitely weren't. Just the other day, Sarah was telling her about Granddad's picture in the new history texts; now, here she is standing with history in the making.

Shepard is _still_ looking at her though, even as tactful as is her reputation, and, hopelessly frank as is her own, Ashley breaks the silence. "Commander?"

"Williams." Shepard sucks in a quick breath, rather obviously weighing her words. "You haven't seen a _turian_ through here by any chance?"

The way she's talking, she wants specifics, but Ashley can't say that she has. "No ma'am. Never seen a turian live and in person," she says after a thought.

Shepard sneaks another breath through her teeth and huffs, likely unhappy with her answer or pondering her competence, but still concedes, "If only we all were so lucky." Mission report mock-ups rattle around her brain for a few seconds before they lock eyes again. "Here's a mission parameter for you: see a turian, hold your fire," she says, and mutters to herself offhandedly. "God knows, I try."

Before she can say more, the lieutenant calls back over his shoulder, "Negative contacts, Commander," and Ashley lets out a sigh, mixed apprehension and relief.

Shepard looks to him, then nods to Ashley. "Williams."

"Aye-aye, ma'am." And she forges ahead as before. Though, she can't help feeling strangely… disappointed.

It's not as if she won't be stuck on this planet tomorrow, waiting to be court-martialled with extreme prejudice while the _real_ marines rake in the accolades. _Donkey_ _ **did**_ _say, "Luck is for the lonely," and that's..._

* * *

 **AMATERASU, 2173**

* * *

"Just my luck," Ashley grumbles, casting a glare over the flickering datapad in her hand.

"What's the matter, sweetie?" It's her mother, strained as usual, and Ashley swears she hears the next words out of her mouth before she even responds, but she answers anyway.

She sighs. "History class dropped me a grade level for my presentation."

"Again?" Her mother feigns surprise over running water and the clank of dishes, but Ashley knows she's already guessed why; she's grilled the dean at least once a semester for ages – though it seldom does much good. "For what?"

The offending datapad clatters to the kitchen table loudly; no one bothers to tell her not to break it anymore, not even her conscience. "Said my _'bias_ toward my grandfather' was showing." She glowers.

Anyone else could have run through her material and gotten a grudging A-minus; her references were solid, her interviews were to the point, and if her opinion was unpopular, she certainly backed it up with fact.

 _Just_ her luck, though, it so happened she ended up with the only codgery ex-military bastard this side of the Citadel to think himself a patriot, a liberal, and a proper historian – even if he'd been dishonorably discharged for God knows what and half the time can't remember that the Americas were more than two continents of failing countries comprised of imperialist idiots, half of whom were allegedly responsible for World War III.

America wasn't just the beacon of the free world. It used to _stand_ for something, and not just the galactic anthem or fancy military processions. It was the right of every man to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness – democracy, free will – _good_ will, something any Alliance serviceman, past or present, would do well to remember. It's just _her_ luck as a Williams, three generations of brass in her blood, to be reminded by the very people who love to forget all of the above.

Granddad, he knew about that kind of luck; not that he ever had any _good_ luck since Shanxi – the faux pas no one seems to remember how to forget. Her mom jokes that it's some kind of generational curse, one of those things that's only half as funny as it is true – that she _really_ wishes _wasn't_ so she could stop joking; Schadenfreude is only half as fun when it's self-derivative, and Ashley sometimes thinks it's the only thing keeping her sane, or at least a close second between that and Cuban cigars with Dad.

It's not ideal, she keeps telling herself, but could be worse.

The pills and injections they put people on these days, she wouldn't wish them on her worst enemy. A couple months on a so-called calming regimen while she was pregnant with Sarah had her half-in and half-out of her mind, halfway caring about her own kids, and then there was the _halfway_ problem of withdrawals once she was finally able to convince the doctors to let her quit.

After all that hell, she'll take couple _Cubans_ and a clear head over a chemical regimen _any_ day.

Now, sure, they're only legal now that Cuba has finally gone under back on Earth, they're probably fake, and they smell like shit, not to mention the astronomical carcinogen tax imposed at the behest of lobbyists from the local EPA and CDC branches, but she believes life's simple pleasures are sometimes worth paying for, and Dad, well, he just teases her because no one ever pegs her as the type.

It never ceases to surprise Ashley all the many ways her her parents – God bless them – are even bigger children than she and her sisters. They still insist one day she'll understand what it's like marrying someone who isn't afraid to tease her like a gentleman, but somehow she doubts it. She's probably too impatient; there's _so_ much paperwork, and she'd really rather avoid the embarrassment of some dear-future-husband getting the _talk_ when everyone constantly asks if she's gay.

 _Seriously, Mom, Dad, I don't know – I don't care! Take the hint already!_ And they might if she ever actually said anything instead of turning three shades of pink and yelling for them to _please_ shut up. After all, they're full of surprises.

Her mom still won't tell how their little smoking tradition ever came to be, though, and Dad's too smart to try it in uniform – there are just certain things a Williams can't get away with – but he knows she can't resist, so he orders them to arrive a day ahead of him.

Ashley thinks it'd be smarter just to get a vaporizer. At least then they'd be several thousand credits richer at the end of the year, the house wouldn't reek of smoke three days after Dad shipped out again, and she could inhale. And why shouldn't she? There are few things more attractive than having cake and eating it too. One of them is having nicotine without smelling it. Another is realizing that possibility.

Even so, Ashley can't deny, getting that special delivery in the mail every couple of months is still the highlight of her day, or _yesterday_ , to be exact. The last thing she thinks before she starts the day is, _He better not be late!_

* * *

 **A/N:** Thanks for all the reviews and follows/favs, everyone! Took a bit longer than usual to get anything out this time around. I had a catastrophic HDD corruption after my PC crashed. Blue screen of death; you name it. So I had to make a rescue USB to grab what files I could, which took forever because I had a ton, repair the jacked registry, format the drive and make a new partition, reinstall windows, etc.

Also, I hit a huge slice of writer's block for some sections of Eden Prime, but I have some original poetry lined up for the next few chapters, as well as the majority of the skeleton for the trilogy written, alternate pathways and backgrounds, etc. Feel free to drop a random plothole or correction you can't stand in a review and I'll get on it. :)


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